ALDWYN ROBERTS LORD KITCHENER APRIL 18-1922

 ALDWYN ROBERTS LORD KITCHENER APRIL 18-1922

Murphy Browne © April 16-2024

“I can’t stand the cold in winter

I want to buy an incubator.” 

From the calypso “The Cold In Winter” by Aldwyn Roberts, the Lord Kitchener.

Aldwyn Roberts, the Lord Kitchener, was born on April 18, 1922, in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago. Aldwyn Roberts, better known as Lord Kitchener or “Kitch”, is regarded as the “Grandmaster” of calypso music. Calypso originated on the plantations of Trinidad in the 17th century at a time when social interaction of enslaved Africans was banned. Calypso became an important means of communication to share news and to protest. Enslaved Africans sang about their desire for freedom and to warn other enslaved Africans of impending danger. They covertly and overtly protested their enslavement.     

Calypsonians with their evocative and witty singing style, and sometimes satirical, scathing, and provocative lyrics, have educated and entertained for centuries. Music was an avenue for enslaved Africans to express their feelings. The calypso was used even after slavery was abolished, to voice grievances against colonial overlords and even government after independence.

Calypsos were also used to criticize and mock those in political power. Calypsonians risked much to speak out for working class citizens as they criticized the powerful. African Trinidadian historian Errol Gaston Hill, thought that “Calypso originated in West African griots and developed alongside other traditional Caribbean songs to incorporate ‘elements of digging songs changed by people at work; belair and calinda songs when they play; shango and shouter baptist revival songs when they worship; and insurrectionary songs such as were sung by slaves in revolt.’” As Hill pointed out "The one great leveller was the calypsonian. He sang with courage and wit, debunking and defending the small." 

Music has sustained Africans dealing with myriad oppressions. Enslaved Africans used various means, including music, to protest and resist their enslavement. They sang songs to arrange secret meetings and songs which encouraged escape and sabotage. Oral history passed from generation to generation was always part of sustaining culture which included storytelling and songs. From this history of storytelling, music and dance as a way to sustain the African culture, came various forms of music including calypso. Calypso is one of several musical genres with roots on the African continent. Calypso is a popular Caribbean genre of music that was created by Africans enslaved in the Caribbean. Calypso is resistance music. African Caribbean scholars have opined that “The calypso, which has attained its highest form of expression in Trinidad, is recognized as a re-interpretation of a traditional African topical song.” 

On June 21, 1948, the 26-year-old calypsonian Aldwyn Roberts/Lord Kitchener introduced calypso to the British Isles when he arrived at Tilbury Docks on HMT Empire Windrush. Kitch was featured on the documentary of the arrival of the ship Empire Windrush. He introduced himself to British audiences by singing “London is the Place for Me” a calypso that expressed the hopes and dreams that many of the excited Windrush passengers likely felt as they landed in the UK. 

During the 14 years that Kitch lived in the UK, his original hopefulness/optimism faded. From “London is the Place for Me” in 1948, he was soon singing “If You Brown,”

It’s a shame it’s unfair but what can you do

The colour of your skin makes it hard for you…

If you brown they say you can stick around

If you white well everything’s all right

If your skin is dark, no use, you try

You got to suffer until you die.”

Kitch also entertained his fans with his adventures in London. The calypso ‘Underground Train’ is about his adventure on the London Underground in the 1950s:

“A ha my first misery, is when I embark at Piccadilly,

I went down below, I stand up in the crowd don’t know where to go.

I decided to follow a young lady, well I nearly met with my destiny,

That night was bad luck for Kitchener, I fall down on the escalator.”

Perhaps by 1957 Kitch had embraced Pan-Africanism after living in London for almost a decade in a racist culture. He released “Africa, my home” in 1957, acknowledging/embracing his African ancestry. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LXKWYrKYcA 

In 1957 when Ghana became an independent nation Kitch sang:

“The national flag is a lovely scene, with beautiful colours red, gold and green,

And a black star in the centre, representing the freedom of Africa.

Ghana, Ghana is the name Ghana we wish to proclaim,

We will be jolly, merry and gay, The sixth day of March, Independence Day.”

In 1962, Lord Kitchener returned to independent Trinidad and Tobago. Kitch lived the rest of his life in Trinidad and Tobago, where he was very influential in the world of calypso. He transitioned to the ancestral realm on February 11, 2000, Trinidad and Tobago. The Lord Kitchener of calypso has been honoured in the UK and in Trinidad and Tobago. He has been honoured with two statues in his home country: one in Arima and another in Port of Spain. His former home, Rainorama Palace, is a museum, an auditorium is named after him in the National Academy for Performing Arts in Trinidad and a street in Arima named Lord Kitchener Avenue. In 2023 he was honoured in the UK with a plaque placed at his former UK home site. The calypso legend Aldwyn Roberts/Lord Kitchener would have been 102 years old on April 18-2024.

Murphy Browne © April 16-2024

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS MAHAICA GUYANA - VANCOUVER B.C

 APRIL 25-1858 JAMES DOUGLAS 

Murphy Browne © April 21-2022 

On April 25, 1858, a group of 35 African Americans from San Francisco arrived in Victoria, British Columbia. They had been invited by Governor James Douglas. Reportedly some members of the scouting party were so impressed that on returning to San Francisco they said, "The climate is most beautiful; the strawberry vines and peach trees are in full blow... All the colored man wants here is ability and money... It is a God-sent land for the colored people." Following this glowingly optimistic description, approximately 800 African Americans later moved to British Columbia. 

The exodus of African Americans who accepted Douglas’ invitation were fleeing the California Fugitive Slave Act of April 1852. In 1850 California joined the Union as a state free of slavery. In 1852, the state legislature passed the California Fugitive Slave Law, legalizing the re-enslavement of those who arrived with their enslavers before statehood. The California Fugitive Slave Act in 1852, mandated that government officials and ordinary White citizens help slaveholders recapture people who escaped. This led to widespread abuse where any African American man, woman or child (enslaved or free) could be seized by any White person and be enslaved or re-enslaved because African Americans could not testify against White people in court. Longing to live as free people, members of the African American community began exploring opportunities to move from California.  

Governor James Douglas was aware of the plight of the African American community in California and wanting to increase settlement in B.C to discourage a possible U.S. annexation, he sent an invitation to the African American community of San Francisco in 1858. On April 25, 1858, a scouting party of 35 African Americans from San Francisco arrived in Victoria harbour on the steamship Commodore. A plaque was installed on August 18, 1978, to commemorate the arrival of this pioneering group. The plaque reads: “In commemoration of the arrival in 1858 of the first group of Black settlers to the Colony of Vancouver Island.” 

The scouts returned to San Francisco and confirmed that living in the British colony of British Columbia, African Americans would have political and economic rights once they became British subjects. Approximately 800 African Americans settled throughout Victoria, Saanich, and Saltspring Island following the April 25, 1858 expedition. Many of these settlers were free men and women from the northern and southern U.S., while others had fled slavery from various areas in the US. 

Douglas had some idea of slavery because some of his ancestors were enslaved Africans. He was born (August 15, 1803) in Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, British Guiana (Guyana) during slavery in the British colony. He was the second of three children born to Martha Ann Ritchie, an African Caribbean woman and John Douglas, a Scottish plantation owner in British Guiana. John Douglas did not marry the mother of his three children because she was not a White woman. The first child, Alexander was born in 1801 and then James two years later. John Douglas returned to Scotland and on January 15, 1809, he married Jessie Janet Hamilton, daughter of a prominent Scottish merchant. In 1811, John Douglas returned to British Guina. During the year he spent in the country Martha Ann Ritchie gave birth to his daughter, who John Douglas named Cecelia after his mother and sister. When John Douglas returned to Scotland in 1812, he took 9-year-old James and 11-year-old Alexander with him. It seems that their mother had no choice in the matter and she never saw her two sons again. 

In Scotland, Alexander and James were not allowed to live with their father and his family. They were boarded out to a Scottish family (Mrs. Glendenning in New Lanark) and attended Lanark Grammar School. They soon learned that they could not live with their father because they were not White and their existence was not acknowledged by any family members except their father who visited occasionally. James adapted to their new life, while Alexander languished. Eventually they were both apprenticed to the North West Company, (Alexander in 1818 and James in 1819) a fur trading business in Montreal (1779 to 1821) and rival of the Hudson's Bay Company. On March 26, 1821, the two fur trading companies were forced to merge. In 1824 when his contract with the fur company was fulfilled Alexander Douglas was happy to leave Canada and returned to Britain. James Douglas remained with the company and thrived becoming chief trader in 1835. Douglas, a dedicated Company man loyal to the British crown was made governor of Vancouver Island in 1851. In 1858, he became Governor of the British Colony, British Columbia. During the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, there was fear that the colony could become an American state, but Douglas asserted the authority of the British Empire. He remained governor of both colonies until his retirement in 1864. 

 

Douglas encouraged the African Americans to settle in B.C because he wanted people who would be loyal to the British Empire and resist US colonization. The British had abolished slavery in 1834 and African Americans felt safer living in a British colony.  

Living in the relatively free British colony did not protect the African American pioneers from racism. In 1859, when the volunteer Fire Department was being created in Victoria, the White organizing committee refused to admit African Americans. The rejected volunteers met with Governor Douglas to offer their services as a volunteer militia unit. A war between the United States and Canada over ownership of San Juan Island seemed imminent so Governor Douglas allowed the formation of the Victoria Pioneer Rifle Company also known as the African Rifles.  

James Douglas transitioned to the ancestral realm on August 2, 1877 and is buried at Ross Bay Cemetery on Vancouver Island, B.C. In the 21^st century, two matching statues were unveiled in honour of James Douglas; one in B.C, Canada and the other in the village where he was born, Mahaica, Guyana.  

Murphy Browne © April 21-2022 

 

 

 

THE BRITISH MONARCHY 2022 - THE END?

 THE BRITISH MONARCHY 2022 - THE END?

Murphy Browne © September 14-2022

The recent death of the sixth female ruler of the British Empire (Mary I, Elizabeth I, Mary II, Anne, Victoria and Elizabeth II,) has many people mourning. However not everyone is mourning; complicated, conflicted and conflicting feelings have been expressed internationally. While there have been official condolences praising her longevity, there has been anger about the role her government played in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere during her tenure on the throne. Some have chosen to take this opportunity to reflect on the brutal legacy of the British Empire and role of the British Royal family during slavery and colonization. Professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi associate professor of literatures in English at Cornell University is one of several people who have been interviewed by various media and have expressed dissatisfaction/unhappiness with the idea that the whole world should be mourning the death of Elizabeth II. She was on safari in Kenya while representatives of the British Empire were brutalizing Kenyans. She was in Kenya in 1952 when her father George VI, died and she became queen. The newly established monarch

Elizabeth II was in Kenya during the height of Kenyan resistance to British rule and the brutal suppression of the Maumau Uprising. Professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi whose ancestors were members of the people who were brutalized by the British government wrote: “My uncle was deaf. He was asked by British soldiers to stop. Of course he did not hear them. They shot him dead. My other uncle was in the Mau Mau. My grandmother hid bullets for him. Colonialism happened to real people. It is absolute madness to expect us to mourn the queen.” During that interview Professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi also said: “It’s one of the ironies, historical ironies that she became queen of Kenya, but at the same time, when the repression against Kenyans was actually becoming not just visible but also vicious, detention camps, murders, wanton shootings. I think it’s a degree of psychosis, that you can go to another people’s land, colonize them, and then expect them to honour you at the same time. The queen became the queen in Kenya at the same time there were murders, assassinations and just good old-fashioned corruption. And then, at the same time, we are expected to mourn the queen.”

Caroline Elkins is a White American historian whose

research and subsequent publishing of the book “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya” exposed Britain’s brutal suppression of the Mau Mau movement in Kenya in the 1950s. The information in “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya” was essential in a court case that resulted in reparations being awarded to more than 5,200 elderly Kenyans who survived the systematic torture and abuse to which they were subjected by representatives of the British government. Elkins was called as a witness to support the Kenyan claim. There are only 3 copies of “Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya” in the Toronto Public Library system of 100 library branches, and 10 holds, although is one reference copy at the Reference library at Bloor and Yonge that can be read in the library. Alice Mugo a Kenyan lawyer shared a photograph of a fading document from 1956 online. It was issued four years into the reign of Elizabeth II, and well into her government’s brutal response to the Mau Mau resistance against colonial rule. “Movement permit,” the document reads. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in concentration camps, others, like Mugo’s grandmother, were forced to request

British permission to travel in their own country. “Most of our grandparents were oppressed,” Mugo tweeted hours after the death was announced on Thursday. “I cannot mourn.”

These sentiments are not limited to Kenya or Kenyans. In an interview, African Jamaican Pan-African dub poet Mutabaruka expressed similar thoughts. Mutabaruka said: “In 1952, that was when she ascended the throne of England. And if you check the history between 1952 and now, you will see that even though slavery was abolished, they redefined slavery and called it colonialism. And colonialism in this part of the world was represented by the throne of England. We’re not really talking about the individual person; we’re talking about a corporation, an institution, which is called the monarchy of England, that has totally devastated a lot of the progress we could have made if it wasn’t for this, colonialism, interpreted to us as slavery still.”

There are 21 copies and 61 holds of Elkins’ most recent book “Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire” with one reference copy available at the Reference library. In “Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire” Elkins quotes Edward Eyre who

was the British governor of Jamaica during the 1865 Morant Bay uprising led by Paul Bogle. Following a brutally vicious suppression of the 1865 Morant Bay uprising of African Jamaicans, Eyre who represented the British crown in Jamaica, boasted that “the retribution has been so prompt and so terrible that it is likely never to be forgotten.” It has not been forgotten and has been immortalized in the song “96 degrees in the shade” by the group “Third World.”

The death of Elizabeth II and the appointment of her son as the next British monarch, Charles III has caused various reactions from other African Caribbean communities. Dorbrene O’Marde, chair of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Commission, said: “I’m under no obligation, to be mourning her death. And that is simply because of, my understanding of history, my understanding of the relationships of the British monarchy to African people and Asian people, but to African people certainly, on the continent and here in the Caribbean. And so that my response is perhaps to recognize the role that the queen, Queen Elizabeth II, has played, how she has managed to cloak the historical brutality of empire in this veneer of grandeur and pomp

and pageantry, and graciousness.”

Since the death of Elizabeth II there have been growing calls to dismantle the Commonwealth of Nations which was established as the British Empire began to crumble and shrink. There are 56 countries across the world that maintain ties to the royal family as members of the Commonwealth of Nations, an international organization composed mainly of former British colonies. The Commonwealth of Nations was born out of the slow disintegration of the British Empire, which covered a fifth of the world’s surface at its peak in the late 19th century. Its holdings spanned from Hong Kong to the Caribbean to a wide swath of southern and East Africa. Queen Victoria, whose reign was critical to consolidating the empire, became Empress of India in 1877. The empire shrank as British colonies declared their independence. The slow dissolution of the British Empire began in the late 19th century as predominantly white colonies such as Canada and Australia were granted dominion status—meaning they could pass their own laws, which would be subject to royal approval. In 1926, Britain and the dominions formed the British Commonwealth of Nations, agreeing they

would all be "united by a common allegiance to the Crown." When India declared its independence in 1947, it chose not to swear fealty to the crown—opening the floodgate for other countries to join the Commonwealth under the same conditions. The organization officially became the Commonwealth of Nations. Now with the wind of change blowing through much of the populations of the Commonwealth of Nations, that organization is at risk. The legacy of the once “glorious” British Empire which once “ruled the waves” seems to be coming to an end with the death of the longest reigning British monarch.

Murphy Browne © September 14-2022